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In another in a series of unremarkable mid-season games for the Raptors where the wins have been piling up, this one had a little something extra.

First it came in a game the Raptors did not win. That it came in a bit of a surprising 94-89 loss to the 76ers was really beside the point.

The first surprise came pre-game with news that Jared Sullinger, the off-season free-agent signing that had yet to play a game of consequence for his new team would be making his regular-season debut.

The plan initially was to bring Sullinger back Friday in Charlotte but with Lucas Nogueira requiring 24 hours off after going through the concussion protocol and the team already down Patrick Patterson, it made sense to move up his return.

Sullinger was certainly game.

“I’m happy, I’m happy,” Sullinger said about an hour before tipoff. “Finally get it out of the way. Just ready to try to make an impact on this basketball team some way, some how.”

Sullinger had left foot surgery after playing a game with the Raptors to begin the pre-season. He has been with the Raptors every step of the way since so familiarizing himself with the playbook isn’t much of an issuer, but conditioning certainly was going to be a concern.

“Oh for sure,” Sullinger said of he conditioning question when it came up pre-game. “That is always the biggest thing especially when you don’t play for three months. Everybody is kind of in tip-top shape just because everyone knows their minutes and what they need to do. I just have no idea what is going to happen next so you just got to be ready.”

On that front Sullinger surprised himself.

“I was able to keep up with the game,” Sullinger said after scoring eight points in his return in just under 14 minutes. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to keep up especially how hard and how fast the Sixers play. But I was able to keep up with the game and just picking my spots.”

The scary part of the evening came in the third quarter when DeMarre Carroll, a guy who has had more than his fair share of time on the injured list in his Raptors’ tenure, had to be helped to the locker room after he dove head-first into teammate Pascal Siakam’s knee going for a loose ball.

Carroll remained down on the court for a long stretch before he walked rather shakily to the locker room with help from the Raptors’ training staff.

The angst eased a little after Carroll was seen by the 76ers doctors on site and passed their tests. The issue was deemed a sore neck which is a heck of a lot less serious than it first looked.

He did not speak with the media after the game.

Those two events overshadowed the third rarity, a Toronto loss largely because of a very solid effort by the 76ers who are most certainly no longer a team lacking a defensive identity, but also due to a handful of uncharacteristic mental mistakes the kept this comeback from finishing like many of the others, in the win column.

“When you’re grinding it out in a game like this, you can’t shoot yourself in the foot,” Casey said before listing off this mistakes. “Five second call (on an inbound), out of bounds we throw it to them when a guy’s not looking at you, all those mental mistakes are fatigue mistakes, mistakes you can’t have in a game like this when points are at a premium. All that added up at the end of the game.”

But Casey also made the point that the Raptors had opportunities in this one, the kind of opportunities they normally take advantage of, but failed to on this night.

“We missed a lot of wide open shots, they didn’t do anything necessarily, they’re a good team, they’ve been playing well, no disrespect to them but we missed a lot of wide open shots,” Casey said. “(Terrence) Ross had three wide open threes that we missed.”

Offensively the Sixers got contributions from all corners of the lineup beginning with Ersan Ilyasova, moving on to Joel Embiid and then a stellar fourth from Dario Saric who was doing it at both ends stuffing Sullinger one second and then draining a contested three the next trip down the floor.

Saric would wind up with a modest eight points and nine boards but his play in the fourth quarter was pivotal.

Embiid, who hears chants of “Trust the Process” every time he goes to the line and often during timeouts, was questionable to even play after flu-like symptoms kept him out of shootaround.

Embiid then went out and played 27 minutes while putting up 26 points and adding nine boards.

For the Raptors, it was a DeRozan/Lowry night as DeMar again struggled early but came on like gangbusters late to finish with 25 points along with six assists.

Lowry, who was in foul trouble a lot of the night, eventually fouling out in the final minute, finished with 24 and four assists.

It was the first Toronto loss against the Sixers in 15 games, the 14-game winning streak the longest active one Toronto owned against a particular opponent.

For the Sixers, it was their seventh win in the past nine games.

The 89 points by the Raptors was the second lowest output of the year. They scored just 82 in San Antonio.